I think my summer cold is back. I'll never understand why a winter cold is so much easier to shake, but I'd love to know why. This thing has been off and on since June. Blech.

Despite that, it’s been a beautiful few days. Well, aside from the water being off for about seven hours for repairs on Thursday, but that's been happening so often in this building you hardly notice when you prep for it. The muggy heat is still kicking around, but there has been a gorgeous cool breeze that actually made it pleasant to be outside. Plus mostly clear blue skies with some beautiful sunshine...yes, very lovely day. It was a little easier keeping Dalila out longer, when it's muggy I don't enjoy being out there and she gets too easily overheated, so I limit it to 30 minutes. Less if she's constantly stopping. Today we were out almost an hour mostly waiting on my mom who we ended up missing anyway. She was later than I thought she'd be. Anywho. While walking around the building I came upon this guy who owns a rottweiller wandering around the back grass behind my building. That in itself isn't unusual, there's a few dog owners in the general area who pass through there and so long as they pick up after their animals no one minds. And I've seen him around, and he has by far the best behaved dog out of all the dog owners I see. His dog doesn't pull, doesn't try to wander, doesn't try to go up to people uninvited and is always right beside him.

So we approached and I tried to get Dalila to just walk since she's started a habit of barking her goofy head off at any dog around, and I'd like her to learn that we don't do that. She was good until the rottie saw us and started sort of rearing up and getting all excited. Not aggressively, not all that excitedly but you have to admit, when you're a dog that barely stands 15 inches tall a rottie doing the dog equivalent of 'hey you're another dog! I want to come say hi!' can be a wee bit intimidating. He's a good owner though, made his dog lie down and kind of chuckled at Dalila's barking as I tried to calm her down - it's comforting when you see another owner who kind of 'gets it' and doesn't try to just walk away - and tried to coax her over to see her. Of course he gave me the standard 'oh you don't have to worry about my dog' but I could tell even before we walked up to them that it really was okay. Some owners will give you that line will either being clueless or ignorant that their dog actually is something to be worried about. I didn't realize just how big this rottie is! I stand at about 5'5, 5'6 and the top of his head came to my abdomen. Really friendly dog though, immediately sniffing out the treats in my pocket that I use for Dalila's training. The owner and I chatted a moment, and then we both went our own ways. Naturally when the rottie starts walking away from her, Dalila kind of looks at him like 'where are you going?' If anyone can tell me how to say ‘learn to properly meet dogs and they won’t leave early, silly’ in dog I’d be so grateful.

@Maria: me too. It's funny, but around here it's the dog owners with the bigger dogs who tend to be the better owners, though there's two small dog owners in my building who are actually pretty good. I find the owners of the little yappy ones are more likely to be clueless and their dogs not sociable at all. There's two little dogs I won't associate with at all because they're just too aggressive.